Lesson 123: I thank my Father for his gifts to me.
There are so many things I want to change about myself. Certainly, I’d like to be taller and better looking, but generally, I stick to the things I can change about myself – my temper, my tendency to constantly self-criticize, my weight … the list is pretty much endless. As soon as I think I’ve got one thing changed for the better, a whole litter of new flaws pop up to take its place.
The line in today’s lesson that jumped out at me was this one:
“Give thanks … that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself.”
Changeless? This lesson tells me I don’t have to change anything about myself – my true, divine Self, that is. I am already perfect, already innocent, already centered in the truth of my true Being. Nothing needs to be done or changed because nothing is ever amiss.
Here in my body – trapped within my ego – change is a constant. We’re changing our mind, our values, our outward appearance, our opinions, and on and on it goes. Change is the ego’s stock and trade. If it can keep you off balance – looking for the next self-improvement to make and then the next and the next – it can keep you distracted for an entire lifetime and you’ll never be able to hear those words from the Divine that “you are changeless,” just as God is changeless.
Not just changeless, this lesson tells us. We also are saved from this ego world already because we have a function while we are in these bodies to remember who we are and use our bodies to communicate that message to the whole world so that everyone will have the chance to hear the truth: we are changeless. We are already peace. We are already love. We are already joy. Nothing outside of us – nothing even within these bodies – will ever change or negate that single Truth.
When we realize this, we become the Voice for God that echoes “round and round the world,” this lesson says. We don’t ever have to go changin’ for God to love us. There is already nothing unlovable about us. No one is unlovable – and when we realize that, Hafiz says, there will be nothing to renounce, nothing to change.
He writes:
Some newlyweds came to me
They looked at me with serious faces
and sincerely asked,
“Does God want us to renounce the sweet pleasures
our bodies and the earth may give
and practice discipline?”
And I replied, “Do what most enables you to fly,
and brings a feeling to the heart that makes you
glad to be alive.”
My guests then said, “Is it really that simple?”
And I said, “Yes, why not?”
Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash